"Nick McKeown and I are offering a free, online class on computer networking. We're professors of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford and are also co-teaching Stanford's networking course this quarter. The free, online class will run about six weeks and is intended to be accessible to people who don't program: the prerequisites are an understanding of probability, bits and bytes, and how computers lay out memory. Given how important the Internet is, we think a more accessible course on the principles and practice of computer networks could be a very valuable educational resource. I'm sure many Slashdot readers will already know much of what we'll cover, but for those who don't, here's an opportunity to learn!"

__________________
You don't need to be a genius to debug a pf.conf firewall ruleset, you just need the guts to run tcpdump

The free, online class will run about six weeks and is intended to be accessible to people who don't program: the prerequisites are an understanding of probability, bits and bytes, and how computers lay out memory.

The prerequisite is listed at the bottom of the page:

Quote:

Students need an introductory course in probability, a strong understanding of bits and bytes, and knowledge of how computers lay out data in memory.

This places additional emphasis on probability literacy. Those considering taking this course should be honest about their mathematical aptitude before signing up. I suspect the class will get into the random timers associated with Ethernet (Layer 2) & a most routing protocols (Layer 3) such as OSPF. This could be a good experience for those who have some competence in the underlying mathematics & would enjoy a theoretical treatment.

I can attest that test course are HEAVILY mathematical! I signed up for the Algorithms: Design and Analysis classes and after the first lecture realized that it was more a class in what I would call advanced calculus that just happened to be doing proofs for computer algorithms and since I had not done a proof in 25 years it was a little much.

But the class was still very interesting, so if you are actively using calculus and doing proofs, I'd recommend giving them a shot.

__________________
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick